Concorde aircraft histories
| Concorde | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| British Airways Concorde in 1986 | |
| Role | Supersonic airliner |
| Manufacturer |
BAC (now BAE Systems) Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale, now EADS) |
| First flight | 2 March 1969 |
| Introduction | 21 January 1976 |
| Retired | 26 November 2003 |
| Status | Retired from service |
| Primary users |
British Airways Air France See Operators below for others |
| Number built | 20 (including 6 non-airline aircraft) |
| Program cost | £ 1.3 billion |
| Unit cost | |
Twenty Concorde aircraft were built, six for development and 14 for commercial service.
These were
All but two of these aircraft are preserved.
The two prototype aircraft were used to expand the flight envelope of the aircraft as quickly as possible and prove that the design calculations for supersonic flight were correct.
Both pre-production aircraft were used to further develop the design of the aircraft. Changes to design include different wing plan form, more fuel, different engine standard, different air intake systems etc.
The production aircraft were different in many ways to the original aircraft necessitating re-examining certain areas to obtain certification. In all there were six "development" aircraft. The two prototypes (001/002), the two pre-production (101/102) and two production aircraft (201/202)
British Airways had seven production aircraft in commercial service:
As part of tenth-anniversary celebrations on 24 December 1985, British Airways photographed G-BOAA, G-BOAC, G-BOAF and G-BOAG formation flying for their publicity material.
Air France also had seven production aircraft in commercial service:
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